Saturday, January 9, 2010

CBC’s active suppression of the news: 3 strikes and you’re out CBC


To: ombudsman@cbc.ca

This is a story about the active suppression of the news at the CBC, as provided by three corroborating first hand incidents of the past 30 months, involving Susan Bonner (would-be champion of the truth), CBC Radio (ditto/not so) and the the CBC’s The National (not so).

I am a big believer in the need for a public broadcaster, like PBS in the US, or the CBC here in Canada. Public broadcasters have an essential role to play as a counterpoint to the corporately owned commercial broadcaster’s whose news reporting is invariably biased by commercial concerns and commercial conflicts of interest. The income trust issue is ALL about the commercial interests of corporations in Canada, as it was exclusively corporate interests who lobbied the Harper government to kill income trusts, including corporate interests who are the majority owners of some of Canada’s largest broadcasters and other media properties.

It is in situations like these that the need for a public broadcaster becomes an absolute necessity. However the CBC has failed to tell the true story of the income trust matter, and provide the honest counterpoint to the endless lies about income trusts that are advanced elsewhere in Canadian media. For some reason the CBC has decided to actively suppress the real income trust story from being told to Canadians, and those who fund its ongoing continuation, namely Canadian taxpayers. Is this active suppression of the income trust story by the CBC a result of commercial pressure or political pressure. I have no insights to offer in helping to answer that question. What I do have is first hand knowledge of three separate incidences where the CBC has ACTIVELY suppressed the news, and Harper’s lies, about income trusts from being told to Canadians, as follows. I have never publicly discussed these incidents until now. I will deal with them in chronological order:

(1) Susan Bonner: Susan Bonner is a senior political reporter with CBC based in Ottawa and you probably know her from the show POLITICS with Don Newman, where she would often anchor when Don was absent. Susan Bonner is now with CBC News in Washington, where she covers the White House. I have great respect for Susan Bonner for her balanced in depth journalism and her tenacity to get the story told. Unfortunately Susan’s tenacity and desire to get the story told on income trusts was not enough to overcome the forces within CBC News that did not want this story told. Completely of her own volition and with no direct prompting by me or knowledge on my part. Susan Bonner was anxious for the income trusts story to get told. Her interest was piqued by the fact that the outrage would simply not go away. This led her to go to her producers on numerous occasions where she proposed to them the idea of doing a more in-depth analysis of the situation and to explore some of the assumptions that other in the press had made concerning this issue such as whether tax leakage was real or not and to explore some of the consequences of this policy like the many takeovers that had resulted.

I only became aware of Susan’s repeated failed attempts to get this story told in the few brief encounters I had with her over the phone to inform her of the latest egregious developments. Like when Flaherty said “It’s not my fault” in response to the many foreign takeovers of vulnerable and undervalued income trusts. Then I got this email from Susan on April 18, 2007:

Hi Brent,

I may be able to finally get a story on the National about the outrage building over recent conservative economic policies.
I am looking for some kind of a meeting that I might shoot in the next little while...any gathering at all where grievances are aired...that I might shoot as a hook to put a story up.
Got any ideas? Thanks.

Susan

The operative word in that message was “finally”. In response to this email from Susan I called her, and got a better understanding of what that meant, not that it was the main focus of our conversation, which was more about me getting to her the information that she was seeking. She was clearly pumped to get this story told and was almost apologetic about not getting told at that point in time, which is where she indicated to me that she had tried on three separate occasions to get the story told, but only to be suppressed in those efforts from within CBC.

In the context of the time at which this breakthrough would have occurred, ie April 2007, such a story by Susan Bonner of the CBC on POLITICS would have been very important in terms of how the issue was to unfold. Sadly to say, I learned shortly thereafter that Susan’s green light on this story, turned to red, and never got told in the way Susan had hoped it would.

(2) CBC Radio:
As you know I ran as the Liberal Candidate against Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the 2008 Election. It was I who approached the Liberal Party to run against Flaherty, and not the other way around. My candidacy attracted a lot of media attention because I was so closely associated with the income trusts issue and that issue was still very much an open wound with the voting public. One of the many incoming requests that I received from the national news media was from a reporter with the French language channel of CBC Radio. He came to meet me in person at my candidacy office in Whitby, and it was there that he became intrigued by the story that I told him concerning Harper’s lie about tax leakage and the special tax loophole for the pension funds and all the foreign takeovers of trusts that would see no taxes paid in Canada and real tax leakage taking the place of Harper’s bogus tax leakage. This reporter was really pumped. He thought he had stumbled on Canada’s version of Watergate. Well, that’s because he had. Never has a Canadian politician lied to the Canadians public or caused so much harm to Canadians as Stephen Harper did with his tax leakage/income trust lie that caused Canadians to permanently lose $35 billion of their hard earning retirement savings.

The only problem this reporter had was I don’t speak a word of French (for all practical purposes). He needed a credible person who could speak French and who was as knowledgeable about this matter as I was. I then put this reporter in touch with Jean-Marie Lapointe, who is a retired former bank manager and who had testified before Parliament at the Income Trust Hearings. The CBC reporter and Jean-Marie quickly hooked up with one another and a meeting/interview was scheduled at Jean=Marie’s home that was recorded and videotaped. This was in the middle of the 2008 election, and would have had a profound effect on the election had Canadians (especially French speaking Canadians, as I am told by Jean-Marie) learned that Stephen Harper had lied to them about the reasons behind his income trust reversal, namely Harper’s lie about tax leakage. CBC Radio did a lot to verify with third parties what it was that both I and Jean-Marie were telling them, This radio segment was all ready to go and to be aired, but was ultimately suppressed. Evidently someone within the CBC thought it was best that Canadians not learn during a federal election that Stephen Harper had lied to then about tax leakage. Contrast this “need not to know” with the turning point for Stephane Dion’s entire campaign, that occurred at the late stage of the 2008 election when Dion was surging to the point of almost being a contender, until the CTV decided it would do a hatchet job on him by airing some out takes from that infamous interview, in which Dion asked the interview to clarify what he was asking, given the convoluted way in which it was being asked.” CBC suppresses factual evidence of gross material wrong doing by a sitting Prime Minister during an election, while CTV airs out takes that it said it would not, in order to do a hatchet job on the man who sought to replace him.”

These are the standards of Canada’s news media organizations. Makes you wonder whose conduct is worse. The commercially owned CTV or the publciy owned CBC. I will let other be the judge. All I know is that had these two incidents been dealt with in accordance with the fair practices of honest and professional journalism, Stephen Harper would probably not be Prime Minister today, an outcome that certain, yet to be identified people within CTV and the CBC were seeking to avoid. I am not suggesting they knowingly worked in concert with one another as that would be absurd, but in terms the consequences of their deliberate acts, it didn’t matter, as one candidate for office was gunned down by the media, while the other was allowed to falsely remain standing. Thank you CTV and CBC. You are the Giuliano Zaccardelli’s of the 2008 Canadian Federal Election. You nailed Dion in the middle of the 2008 election the way Zaccardelli toasted Paul Martin/Ralph Goodale in the middle of the 2006 election. But you are the media and not the cops. Perhaps you are a new hybrid entity: The media cops?

(3) The National’s “Question Period” segment:
The third and final strike against the CBC that reveals the extent to which the CBC is clearly suppressing the truth about Harper’s scandal from reaching prominence in the minds of its viewers occurred over the last 48 hours. This example took place in broad public for all to see. In much the same manner that Facebook afforded Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament an opportunity to express the breadth of their discontent, without filtering of that news by the media, this most recent example of the suppression of the income trusts story by the CBC does as well. I will make this brief and provide you with a link to a more fulsome telling of this story that appears at the end of this piece.

In light of the sudden prorogation of Parliament, CBC funds itself faced with a bit of a news void. Gone will be the daily antics of Parliament’s Question Period as the source of news. Some creative soul in CBC came up with the idea of replicating Question Period with a suurogate Question Period in which average Canadians would be given the chance to pose question of the government. CBC would bring access to power to the grass roots by allowing Canadians to post suggested questions on line that others could vote for and the questions with the most votes would actually be posed to politicians. Well, turns out that was a complete charade of an exercise as it didn’t go down like that at all. When faced with the outcome that the two most popular questions by a wide margin that were posted on CBC’s website that was open to all Canadians to vote on were about the income trusts issue, something that millions of Canadians have been seeking solid answers to for three years, the CBC had a dilemma.

The news story that CBC had been actively suppressing for three years had raised its ugly head once again. So what did CBC do? They totally abandoned the process they had laid down for their Question Period, and suppressed the income trust story once again by going with five softball questions, none of which came within a mile of revealing anything new about the income trust issue.

Who wthing CBC is doing this? Why are they doing it? When will Canadians learn the truth about Stephen Harper’s patently false and infinitely provable lie about tax leakage and all the damaging consequences of his income trust policy, when viewed from the perspective of ALL Canadians? Why do we even have a public broadcaster when it is no less conflicted in its news coverage of stories that are commercial in nature than the commercial broadcaster itself?

Or is there a more innocuous explanation? Maybe the CBC is incompetent as a new organization. Maybe the CBC is unable to see a huge news story when its starring them in the face? In much the same way that the US Homeland Security is unable to protect Americans from the threat of underwear bombers after they have been told directly about the threat posed by that very individual or in exactly the same way that the SEC was unwilling to apprehend the world’s largest Ponzi Scheme artist after being repeatedly being led to the scene of the crime.

That’s it. The CBC is simply downright incompetent, rather than rampantly politically and/or commercially conflicted. Quite frankly I don’t care which explanation the CBC wants to go with, but I do know that the only way to prove that they are neither (1) commercially conflicted, or (2) politically conflicted, or (3) incompetent, or (4) none of the above, is to let the income trust story to be told in all its factual glory.

For that, they will need to have Susan Bonner (or someone equal to her calibre) give me a call so Susan Bonner can do what she was suppressed from doing by her bosses at CBC, ever since this story first went totally unreported by the CBC, in terms of the real facts of the situation. My number is 647 505-2224. In the meantime, perhaps CBC Radio could air that segment with Jean-Marie Lapointe that was produced during the 2008 Election, but also suppresses by the CBC. On second thought it would have to be updated for the many takeovers of trusts that could have been averted if the CBC had not suppressed this news from entering the public’s consciousness like the $4 billion takeover of Harvest Energy Trust by Korean state-owned Korean National Oil Company.

PS: Maybe that’s whose interests that Canada’s public network works on behalf of? The people of Korea or the the people of Abu Dhabi? Add to that list, Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing, Goldman Sachs, etc. etc., all of whom have made a killing picking off these articicially devalued income trusts that precipitate major losses to Canadian investors and major losses in Canadian tax dollars, while the CBC is asleep at the switch, covering pulp garbage like Dragon’s Den or that nonsense that passes for news on the Lang and O’Leary Exchange. Known on Bay Street as the LOL Exchange, i.e. a “joke” that passes itself off as business news.

PPS: CBC’s Senior Business Reporter Amanda Lang has proven herself to be a shill for Flaherty on this income trust matter ever since her days on BNN. Therefore, please do not consider having her call me as a substitute for Susan Bonner in the event Susan Bonner is too busy. Maybe have CBC’s Harvey Cashore call me. He’s the one who broke the Mulroney Schreiber affair on the Fifth Estate, He’s not afraid to go into a hot kitchen in search of the real truth, consequences to politicians be damned.

From: Brent Fullard
Subject: CBC aka Charade Broadcast Corp



HELLO CBC: aka Charade Broadcast Corp

Just exactly where did you come up with this list of 5 questions? You told your viewers last night that you were going to select question from those submitted by vieweres and invited them to post their questions on dedicated site, where others could voice their preferences by voting.

Viewers did so. Voters did so. CBC appears to have ignored both the viewers and voters who did so.

That dedicated site has over 100 questions, with the two top questions being on the highly unresolved question of Harper's income trust tax that has caused millions to lose billions of their retirement savings, based on a premise that Harper has never proven, and that we all know to be FALSE, namely tax leakage.

Where is that question in YOUR list of 5 questions?

Your viewers and the voters selected these questions above all others:

#1 Harper's income trust tax leakage lie submitted by Brent Fullard 753 votes

#2 Harper's income trust policy that taxes individuals ar 31.5% but not the pension funds submitted by Dr. Mike: 298 votes

#3 Some other issue; 231 votes.

Why are you not following the procedures you set down when you announce this concept that you described as :

(1) We need your help.

(2) You name the question you'd like us to ask a specific MP about a government matter and we'll chase down the answers on your behalf.

(3) And don't forget to vote on the responses.

(4) We'll select from some of the top-rated comments, and build a national poll.

(5) The top responses will be assigned to CBC reporters to chase the answers, and address during our At Issue panel.

(6) It's your government, so we want your question, period.

Judging from your list of 5 questions you didn’t (1) need our help, since (3) we did vote, and (5) you didn’t select the top response. Instead you avoided the top response

This is like false advertising. Why do I feel duped? Dealing with CBC is like dealing with Harper. All smoke and mirrors. A charade. Says one thing does another. We have been prorogued by the CBC.

What is the CBC afraid of? Exposing Harper for the liar that he is? Harper lied to Canadians about tax leakage, which caused Canadians to lose $35 billion of their retirement savings, and the CBC is sweeping it under the rug.

And you call yourself a news organization? LOL

37 comments:

Dr Mike said...

So where does that leave ordinary Canadians who have an axe to grind , those who have been wronged , or at least those that think they have been wronged.

At one time in the past , we could count on fair & somewhat unobstructed journalism to be there to get to the bottom of issues that the public thought important--it didn`t matter how small the issue or how few folks were involved , if there was any hint of wrong-doing , we could count on the media to be on it like a cat on a mouse.

So what has happened since now we can`t count on these same media groups to dig unless it suits those in control , whoever that may be.

The public is being cheated out of the last check & balance on big business & governments alike.

The income trust cover-up , & be sure it is a cover-up , has been swept aside to protect those involved & to protect those who won from the situation.

The shame is that we have no-one to turn to in order to expose the truth.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

WOW!

This is excellent---this should shake a few timbers.

Well done!

Michael

Anonymous said...

WOW!

This is excellent---this should shake a few timbers.

Well done!

Michael

Fillibluster said...

Michael:

It’s the first time I have told this story or any part of it, publicly or privately for that matter.

I wanted to give the CBC every benefit of the doubt.

However, three strikes and you are out!

Not my fault the CBC can’t hit a lob ball....on three separate occasions!

Brent Fullard

Anonymous said...

Brent:

Dion could have been Prime Minister and the information, I think, would have propelled you into parliament!

I am glad that you are revealing this information now! With the focus on the dictatorial government and the lies about Income Trusts, it may finally get some traction in the public domain!

Will E.

Fillibluster said...

Will E.

There was some Liberal suppression going on at the time as well. CBC Radio wanted Dion to say in French what his income trusts policy was on the trust issue so they could make it a central part of the piece and hand him a big “prize” in the minds of the listeners. CBC Radio desperately wanted this clip. I was the one who tried to get it for them. I went to McCallum at least two times in the spaces of several days. McCallum either totally dropped the ball, or conspired not to get it to them. It may have been the latter, because I was asked by Don Newman to be on his show when he learned about mt candidacy. I didn’t know it at the time but Flaherty was also going to be on. Well Flahery went on all right, but I got pre-empted by McCallum. Thanks jerk. McCallum then proceeded to take the issue no further than he had in the past, which is far from where the issue needed to go and where I would have taken it had I not be bumped. How did McCallum think he got this opportunity? For the simple fact that I was running against Flaherty. And how do you have any chance of defeating a sitting Finance Minister? BY appearing on CBC or staying at home?

I have reasons to think John McCallum is in the pocket of Power Corporation who were behind Harper's income trust tax move (big time) as well as being very cool on Dion and keen on Bob Rae, brother of John Rae a big wig at Power Corporation.

The significance of this is that, if this was done deliberately, then Power Corp's wishes would have be achieved: (1) continue to suppress the falsehood that underlie Harper's tax leakage move, in order to preserve the trust tax policy they favour, and (2) prevent Dion the chance to move ahead on the backs of the income trust issue and in the Province of Quebec, knowing that his failure will accrue to Bob Rae's benefit, chosen boy of Power Corporation. All speculation on my part, but not without reasoning.

Brent Fullard

RuralSandi said...

Curious - would this have been before or after Harper appointed a Con supporter to head the CBC?

Just wondering

Fillibluster said...

RuralSandi

EXCELLENT QUESTION!

The CON’s President of the CBC. Hubert Lacroix, came on board on November 5, 2007, which is almost one year to the date of Harper’s 2006 Halloween Massacre.

So in terms of these three incidents that I cite in my post, they would have been

(1) pre-CON era of CBC

(2) CON era of CBC

(3) CON era of CBC

PS: Did you catch Peter Mansbridge's incredibly lame interview of Harper of Thursday? (CON era of CBC)


Brent Fullard

Anonymous said...

Excellent work. Keep up the pressure.

Anonymous said...

It is obvious that CBC (which I assume is financed by the Canadian taxpayers) has told a lie to Canadians. Can they be sued for that?

Frankly Canadian said...

Time for the "The Fifth Estate" to get involved, many Liberal supporters have seen this bias for quite some time. Has our main media source in fact been infiltrated by a highly partisan group with alternative motives? Good post Brent!

Bruce Benson said...

My comments posted to the CBC if they pass moderation.

Well the CBC has totally out done itself. They asked the public to pose questions for the Prime Minister while the government has been prorogued only to ignore the top two questions. The top two questions were regarding Income Trusts and had garnered the most votes. What gall and the CBC calls itself a news organization. LOL. Since the Conservative government does not believe in democracy and since the CBC is owned by the government, they too believe the concept of democracy must be swept under the rug and totally ignored. It`s doesn`t matter how much damage has been done by this pathetic liar of a man called Stephen Harper, the CBC will protect his pathetic ass right to the end

Anonymous said...

CBC and many others fail to understand that the income trust tax policy was the first cut by Harper's anti-democratic knife. Everything we needed to know about the man was exposed by that fraudulent and malicious decision.

Brent Fullard has been unbelievably valiant in resisting the Harper government's income trust tax policy. The people listed below have been steadfast in supporting Fullard's work.

The CBC and other Canadians need to confront the harsh truth about fundamental weaknesses in Canadian democracy. Because of the weaknesses, the Harper government, I believe, has become a habitual liar.

In 2006, Harper's finance minister lied to Parliament about the justification for the income trust tax. Flaherty was allowed to effectively perjure his testimony before Parliament by blacking-out supporting documentation that proved him wrong. Having gotten away with this otherwise illegal behaviour in 2006, Harper's government, I believe, now has a much longer track-record of evading the law by blacking out documents and/or lying to Canadians.

The absolutely amazing thing is that it has taken the CBC and the opposition more than three years to "smell the coffee".

The CBC and the others need to be more keenly aware how weak Canadian democracy has become. For example, if you are the President of the USA and you lie to Congress about the definition of sex, there will be an impeachment trial against you. In Canada, though, if you are a Minister of the Crown and lie to Parliament, any consequences that might flow from such behaviour are at the whim of the Prime Minister.

Democracy was never intended to be a Prime Majority of One -- except in the piteous Canada.

Louis

Anonymous said...

The people running the media are salary earners with big mortgages, are we hated for having worked, saved??

It has to be intergenerational or something??

What are we missing??

Harry

Fillibluster said...

Harry:

I dunno.....a good dose of reality?

Brent

Anonymous said...

Hi Brent.

This is totally outrageous!

Unbelievable what the CBC would do. I'm just sick at the depth of the duplicity shown by the CBC.

Obviously someone at the CBC in a position of Power, is as corrupt as they come, as the Question we wanted asked is not a political Question but one of National interest to voters of all persuasions.

Suggestion: Is there any way you can post your comments on YouTube where we can all vote and make our voices heard, thereby by-passing the corrupt, inept CBC, who lie and deceive just like Harper?


Paul

Anonymous said...

Brent--- I wish you luck. Your efforts to challenge the smug news media are highly commendable.

Remember, however, that the CBC receives about $1billion pa from the federal government. The bias of CBC is definitely left-centre and pro government intervention and reflexively and naively nationalistic (read anti-American).

It likes to give the pretense of being independent---BUT
you have made the income trust issue a hot one and the CBC reporters and editors and executives are well aware that giving this issue a fair play
will greatly displease Harper.And Harper is well known to take nasty
action against anyone he deems an "enemy." CBC will do what it takes to keep the trust issue off the network. They will lie, dissemble, and pretend you are a non-person.

By pressing the case, you will force them into greater contortions that you should document as best you can. But they will keep this issue away from the public as best they can. Their asses are in play.

Bill

Dr Mike said...

Bill

You are absolutely right & that is why we must push hard on the internet where neither the CBC nor Harper rule--at least not yet anyway.

Harper has no control over the content on the net , certainly unlike his leash laws which are in effect with the other media forms.

We must use social media such as YouTube & Facebook to get the word out there.

If we run out of time to save trusts then at least we may save the country.

Dr Mike Popovich

Anonymous said...

Hi Brent, I think you have missed the distinction between the (privately) funded "Public Broadcating System" south of the border and the state-funded 'publicly'-owned CBC here in Canada.....they couldn't be more different. PBS is entirely independent of the US government, while the CBC is subsidized (to the tune of well over a billion dollars a year) by Ottawa. The CBC HAS political paymasters - PBS does not. I agree that Canada could use a true 'public' broadcaster like PBS.

In TVO we have one that comes closer to that model but NOT in the CBC. According to "The Friends of Public Broadcasting" here in Canada (a related organization to Maud Barlow's socialist/nationalist "Council for Canadians") Harper is trying to kill the CBC (with budget cuts) because it is too left-wing. On that point, I would agree with Harper (the CBC has always been a hot-bed of socialist thinking expounded) but, this might also explain why it is so reluctant to 'bite the hand that feeds it'. On the other hand, it would seem that it has missed a great opportunity to excoriate the 'Conservative devil' who is trying to kill it.

The former points towards the political paymaster syndrome, the latter towards sheer incompetence - take your pick. Either way, the country would be better served by an 'independent' public broadcaster - one not funded by the state!

Cheers, Hugh

Anonymous said...

I believe, like the poster "Louis", that the defining moment for the "fix" to destroy our democracy, was the Income Trust taxation.
How else could the legs of our "nationalism" be cut off? What else could have destroyed Canadian autonomy? How else could our institutions such as "universal healthcare" become starved of tax dollar funding? How else could we be forced into an "american condition"?
How else could the global corporations get a stranglehold over Canada? - giving them North America?
If I had a journalists badge, I'd be damn mad and wouldn't be bought.

Anonymous said...

Further, for the definitely lame interview by CBC's Peter Mansbridge, last Thursday, with Harper, Harper said that Canadians are focused on the economy and not the Afghan detainee issue.

So, to be clear, the CBC has it on record, from that interview, that the Prime Minister of Canada says the economy is the most important issue for Canadians.

Further, if CBC wants to be fair and unbiased to Harper's stated opinion (as in the interview),and to Parliament and MOST IMPORTANTLY, Canadian Citizens, CBC should feel compelled to honour the results, which is to feature discussion on this Income Trust ruling and the effects of lost taxes, to the tune of $7.5 Billion per year which is necessary to fund our institutions such as Universal Healthcare. Hey, CBC, how does taxation affect the economy????????

SHORT OF THAT, THE CBC NEEDS TO BE DISSOLVED and DISMANTLED.(harper may get his wish, yet)

Anonymous said...

YOU are a fighter buddy , relentless , not sure how we can win , CBC relies on billions of govt funds , they cant piss the harper people off by airing the I.T. issue . This cover up has been massive .

Richard

Fillibluster said...

Richard:

CORRECTION: Not govt funds, but rather TAXPAYER funds!

Please get ALL your adversely affected Canadian tax paying clients to vote for my Questions its at the top of the list. In fact the top 3 questions are on income trusts. Vote for them all, as this will FORCE the CBC to do their job, or be part of a PUBLIC cover up! This could be the breakthrough as the politicians are all corporate whores, every one of them. Here’s the link again: http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourview/2010/01/your-question-period.html#socialcomments-submit

Brent

Anonymous said...

Brent, Professor Stanbury is right on the money (and I note that he and I agree on the amount of state funding the CBC recurves!).

He is also absolutely correct about their faux nationalism (reflexively anti-American) which I deplore.

As to PBS's funding it is (as per the para you forwarded) as described, although I'm not sure what "certain government agencies" means for I know that Newt Gingrich ended all funding to PBS from the US (federal) government in 1994. Whatever, your point about The CBC being neither "fish nor, fowl" (or, should it be 'foul') is the situation extant and it points towards "political paymaster" being the reason for their recalcitrance in touching the Income Trust issue as opposed to just incompetence!

Cheers, Hugh

Anonymous said...

CBC:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy with old odd ends, stol'n forth of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

[Duke of Gloucester: William Shakespeare's "Richard III"]

And since you know you cannot see yourself, so well as by reflection, I, your glass, will modestly discover to yourself, that of yourself which you yet know not of.

[Cassius to Brutus: William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar"]

Anonymous said...

“Get rid of Heather Hiscock (National), she is incompetent, and bring back Peter.

She completely lied about the questions in "Your Question Period". If she can't tell the truth about the questions, she should not comment on it. What else is the CBC lying about. It is obvious that the CBC is controlled by the government.

The top questions were about Income Trusts and Prorogation.

Send Heather back to Montreal as a traffic reporter. At least she can report in which direction the cars are moving. CBC you should be ashamed of yourself.

You opened the Pandora's box and you lie about what you find when you open it. You are not worth the $1 billion we spend on you.”

Sean

Anonymous said...

Thanks Brent,
 
However I think Harper will just close down the CBC as well as Parliament
 
Russ

Anonymous said...

I know a elderly gentleman who was a self-employed tailor his entire life who takes care of his wife with alzheimer's who depended on income trusts in both their RRIF accounts for their retirement incomes.  He lost almost half his money because of the numb skull income trust tax.  There are thousands like him in the same situation.  People in their 70s, 80s and 90s who this idiot regime doesn't care about who lost half their retirement nest egg when they most need it.  What a bunch of scumbags who perpetrated this fraud!

GL

Anonymous said...

Since both the CBC and CTV are corrupt in not reporting the truth
about income trusts...is there any possibility of getting some
investigative news coverage started in the United States. After all
didn't Harper go on American television (I forgot which programme he was on) to put some of his ideas across! I think the American public usually goes for the "underdog"...which would be all the seniors, etc.who lost money because of Harper's/Flaherty's actions in regards to income trusts.

Someone has to stand up for the "little guy".

Richard

Anonymous said...

Heather said that they had narrowed the questions in “Your Question Period” down to 5 issues including the Afghan detainee issue and how our representation in
Ottawaworks without Parliament.

Damn , I must be an idiot or something because it looked to me like the trust issue would be hard to miss as it garnered ALL of the top spots.

I guess you can never underestimate the power of the PMO.

You can watch last night’s National by clicking on the CBC link below.

-- Sean

http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/ID=1382339942

Dr Mike said...

I see by this mornings count , the trust issue occupies the 6 highest rated questions but CBC continues to ignore this fact.

The Conservative Broadcasting Corporation , eh.

Dr Mike

Anonymous said...

It would seem that the CBC has learned a very important lesson from
Harper... 'PROROGATION, or how to avoid answering questions they don't want to answer...nothing new there then! I was wondering why they were allowing the questions?

I guess Mansbridge is back... or Harper put pressure on them!!! he did after all put in the new head of the CBC along with all of the News Media no doubt they are certainly of that ilk and nobody more so than Solomon.... I guess Don Newman was too left wing to survive. He made a sudden exit.

Josephine

Fillibluster said...

Good one Josephine!

My thoughts exactly...prorogation.. ..must be a contagious disease?

Brent Fullard

Anonymous said...

I just sent this to this CBC program.

"Hi, I am in Montreal and am a senior citizen who was badly hurt by Mr Harper's reversal of his position on never taxing Income Trusts.

Now it seems that the CBC and Peter Mansbridge are pulling the same stunt with the new program "Question Period". They specifically told us, the listening public, that they would ask Mr Harper the questions that polled the highest. Well guess what? Mr Brent Fullard asked a question on Income trusts and the CBC and Pete Mansbridge have ducked it. Can I suggest you interview Peter, and Brent to find out what goes on?"

Teddy

Anonymous said...

Good on you Brent. The SOBs will not gat away with this political neglect.

-- Sean

Anonymous said...

Given the number of votes and the top twenty odd questions are about income trusts, you'd think all 5 questions would be used on this issue.

You'd also think that a news organization would want to get to the bottom of this issue ith this type of response 3 years after the fact.

Oh, I guess I said "news organization" but we're talking about the CBC here.

Randy

Anonymous said...

What more proof does a citizen need to see that our country has been corrupted. Absolutely incredible. Fear of our Federal Government and repercussions from exposing Harpers lies is the only explanation for this travesty. If the media like CBC and most Canadian journalists don,t have the fortitude or guts to question the direction Harper is taking this country then who has ? Public outrage is all that is left. We will see if Canadians want their country back!

Don Bool
Courtenay, B.C.